<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>And Then There Was One by Rucifie</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075125">And Then There Was One</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rucifie/pseuds/Rucifie'>Rucifie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Donquixote "Corazon" Rosinante Lives, Gen, Not Beta Read, Swearing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:54:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rucifie/pseuds/Rucifie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A Cora lives fic where Law finds a way to save Cora. </p>
<p>Sort of.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Donquixote "Corazon" Rosinante &amp; Trafalgar D. Water Law</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>77</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And Then There Was One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Only AO3 has the right to post this work. Do not repost or copy to another site/app.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Out.</p>
<p>He needed out. Law needed out of this fucking treasure chest, he needed out and he needed to get back to Cora-san! Out and away and back before he- before Cora- </p>
<p>A wave of fresh tears ran down his face and Law screamed and screamed silent cries of hate and despair. He hated that he couldn’t make any noise and yet he also held onto it, this lifeline of silence proving Cora-san was still alive.</p>
<p>The chest stopped its trek, something had stopped the caravan of loot and distantly Law heard muffled cries of “Marines!”.</p>
<p> The box he was in listed to the side, like whoever was holding it was thinking something over before ultimately he and his box were dropped and despite the pain of landing he was so so thankful. Now was his chance!</p>
<p>Law scraped at the chest lid, weak from crying, weak from little sleep and from White Lead and getting the Shit kicked out of him and he had to pretend he’d been through worse because now wasn’t the time to fail. He had to get back to Cora-san, at any cost.</p>
<p>With a heave that busted one of his left nails, Law got the lid open enough to squeeze out of the chest and into the cold snow below. He fell into it gracelessly but soundlessly and quickly rolled to his feet, limbs tangled in his blanket. He was still silent, he still had time, he could get to Cora, he could do this. Law ran as fast as his lungs would allow, ignoring the sounds of fighting and cannon fire behind him and followed the deep rut of footprints in the snow that would lead him back to Cora-san.</p>
<p>He didn’t know what he could actually do once he got there, he had no medical supplies and he didn’t know how to use his new devil fruit, but if he could staunch the bleeding, if he could stabilize Cora maybe they could hide near the burning Inn. These thoughts left him, half formed and frantic, with some form of hope until he rounded the last corner towards Cora-san. </p>
<p>Black feather cloak and long long legs lay half covered in the steadily falling snow, beneath them a large red puddle of blood. It was massive, soaking into everything around it with a final kind of inevitability. </p>
<p>Law had never seen so much blood before, and distantly he heard his breath hitch at the sight of it.</p>
<p>He- </p>
<p>He heard-</p>
<p>“CORA-SAN!” Law was on him in a flash, knees soaking in the bloody snow and palms pressed against the destroyed remains of Cora’s shirt. He tripped forward to move up Cora’s chest, never before feeling so small compared to the blonde. There was blood everywhere, more than he had seen before, so much that it stained the air with the smell of it. His little hands were covered, smeared it along the column of Cora’s neck to check for a pulse and along his lips to check for breath. </p>
<p>Law waited.</p>
<p>He waited and waited and felt warm tears cool on his face before falling off his nose. </p>
<p>There was nothing, nothing at all and finally Law lost himself to despair.</p>
<p>He dimly felt his left nail crunch while gripping Cora’s shirt, his bloody and hole-ridden shirt, and wailed. He wailed and cried and screamed, beating his tiny fists into Cora’s still warm chest and cursing.</p>
<p>The lead in his blood, in his lungs, made breathing hard, harder when he was screaming and Law couldn’t grasp how this was better. How he was alive instead of Cora, his big and goofy mountain of a protector. Cora the liar.</p>
<p>He promised, he promised, he promised it’d be alright, promised Doffy wouldn’t kill him, promised they’d both get away.</p>
<p>IT WASN’T FAIR!</p>
<p>The world tinted blue under the snow laden clouds and Law keened into the corpse, “Take me instead, give him back and take me...” he pressed his face into Cora’s bloody chest, not knowing who he was pleading to but begging all the same, because he couldn't-</p>
<p>“Please-”</p>
<p>He couldn’t, he couldn’t do this alone, not again. Not ever again.</p>
<p>“-don’t take him from me too.”</p>
<p>There was a pop like a bone leaving a socket, and Law fell from his slump over his guardian-</p>
<p>-his guardian who was no longer under him. And suddenly the world was turning ass over tea-kettle. His stomach revolted and muscles seized.</p>
<p>Breathing became hard, harder than normal and Law fought to not hyperventilate because this was it wasn’t it? He was finally dying. The gods had heard him and answered his prayers but instead of giving back his Cora-san they were taking him too. </p>
<p>Part of him was okay with that. Let the darkness come, let the world fall away into nothingness. He had fought and fought for three years, all while knowing he was going to die. If this was how he went, he was good with it, just get it over with.</p>
<p>And yet some part of him, a part that sounded like Cora-san, refused to let him give up.</p>
<p>Law opened his eyes and pushed himself off the ground, Cora’s body was gone but his clothing remained, bloody and full of holes. A stray thought asked if Devil Fruit user’s bodies vanished when they died, if that was normal, but the part that sounded like Cora berated him for wasting time.</p>
<p>Cold, he was cold. Freezing actually and Law felt himself grab onto the black feather coat that had been his Cora’s, felt his fingers pull at it to remove it from the blood soaked snow and toss it haphazard over his shoulder. He needed to get out of the snow, get someplace warm.</p>
<p>Coughs wracked his body and darkness sunk into his mind for a moment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next thing he knew he was lying on his side, black feathers in his face, next to the wreckage of the inn with the fires still going- dying under the night sky. How had he gotten here? How much time had passed? He was warm at least but felt as if he’d somehow sprained all the muscles in his body. He couldn’t remember ever being so sore before and the thought came to him that he might have suffered a convulsive seizure.</p>
<p>He twisted his tongue around behind his teeth and found, thankfully, the small mercy of not having bitten through it. </p>
<p>But any relief was quick to fade as he remembered exactly where he was and what had happened.</p>
<p>Law pushed himself up, hands still freezing and gritting his teeth with effort, from the sooty snow, and tried to remember if any other patients had experienced seizures from their poisoning. He didn’t remember off the top of his head and, getting his knees under him with another herculean effort, moved to all fours. Tensing his stomach to stay stable was agony, but he had to get up and where he was. See if this nightmare had all been a fever dream.</p>
<p>‘It wasn’t’, whispered some part of him, but he wouldn’t believe that until he saw it for himself. Hallucinations were common in the late stages of White Lead poisoning and he had been in late stage for three months now. ‘You weren’t hallucinating.’</p>
<p>'Shut up.', Law thought and shook his head, hands clenching in the blackened snow.</p>
<p> But something caught his eye and, looking to the side, Law could see the bloodstain about a hundred yards away. 'It happened, Law.'</p>
<p>"Shut up!" He tried to look away but something in him just couldn’t.</p>
<p>'I died.'</p>
<p>Law felt the statement wash over him like cold water. Dread and despair, thick and invasive, flowed through him but was cut short, quickly followed by confusion. That statement... didn’t make sense?</p>
<p>“I didn’t die. I’m alive.” Law knew this to be true, could see it with his own eyes, so where had that thought come from?</p>
<p>‘Not you, kid. Me.’ There it was again, ‘I died.’  It sounded so familiar, even regretful. So much like-</p>
<p>“Cora-san?”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Law had cracked finally hadn’t he? Cora wasn’t in his head, wasn’t talking to him from beyond the grave-</p>
<p>‘You can hear me, kid?’</p>
<p>Breath he didn’t know he was holding whooshed out of him, taking his voice for a moment, two. Cora, Corazon, Cora-san, was in his head. Law looked around briefly, there was no body to be seen and the voice didn’t really sound so much as it was. It was Cora-san. Law choked a laugh but it barely made it out of his throat before the emotional whiplash took his strength from him.</p>
<p>Law fell back into the snow with a crunch, laughing quietly. He laughed and laughed until his laughs caught in his chest again and he found himself crying.</p>
<p>‘So I'll take that as a yes then,’ came the not-voice, ‘Don’t cry, Law. I’m still here.’</p>
<p> He laid there on his side, scrubbing at his eyes and giving only dry sobs. After so many tears before, the most his eyes could do was itch, but Law scrubbed at them as fiercely as anything. His face was warm, hot even, against his hands.</p>
<p>Something about them didn’t feel right.</p>
<p>He pushed his sorrow back and opened his eyes. Something wasn’t right with the picture from his peripheral and even head-on he couldn’t figure it out. There was something different he should be seeing.</p>
<p>His hands… they were swollen?</p>
<p>No, bigger, and lighter, the white patches on his skin less noticeable than before. He flexed his fingers to test their mobility and found that even bending them felt different. Infact, under the aches and strains and pains from earlier, Law as a whole felt swollen and bloated. He could feel it now, his clothing biting into his skin around the folds and creases. His ankles and wrists were cold where they were exposed outside his blanket.</p>
<p>“I grew,” Law said, giving one last rub at his eyes. “Cora-san, whatever happened made me bigger.”</p>
<p>'I see that.' came an answer from somewhere.</p>
<p>Law huffed sarcastically, "No you don't."</p>
<p>'Huh,' Cora’s voice resonated in him. 'I guess I don't anymore.'</p>
<p>And while Cora may have been intangible at the moment Law could still 'hear' him smile.</p>
<p>And maybe that was what he'd been waiting for, some sort of reassurance that things were gonna be okay.</p>
<p>'I can't guarantee that, but we'll figure something out.'</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>There's no guarantee that I'll add more to this, so what you see is what you get.</p>
<p>I've been kicking this idea around in my head for a few months and I guess today is the day where I finally post it. I'm absolutely weak at the knees for Codependent!Cora&amp;Law and since the tag has been slow I decided to make my own.</p>
<p>I do have ideas for how this is gonna go, but motivation is so fickle that i end up abandoning stuff a lot. I'm hoping that doesn't happen here but... well.. you've been warned.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>